


Memento Mori

by frodo (ringbearer)



Category: Faust - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Genre: Abuse, F/M, M/M, Modern Retelling, kamelot - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 01:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21499867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ringbearer/pseuds/frodo
Summary: A modern day retelling of Johann Wolfgang van Goethe's Faust with inspirations from Kamelot's albums Epica and The Black Halo
Relationships: Heinrich Faust/Gretchen (Faust), mephisto pheles/faust
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Prologue: Omen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was originally not going to post this until the end of nanowrimo because i was going to do this strictly for nanowrimo, but i sorely misjudged my spoon count for the month, so i'm going to post what i have and work on this as my spoons come back.

Heaven, as one might imagine it, does not look the way one thinks it does. There are no endless fields of clouds as one might expect nor were there endless fields of grass and flowers and warmth that told of the deepest parts of summer or early fall. It looked, to the angels that lived there, like Earth did on their few ventures to the small blue marble their father had created so long ago. Not long to them, to the humans to inhabited the Earth, it had been quite some time since its inception. Billions of years. A blink of an eye to an immortal angel, but time passing nonetheless. And it was marked by how much the little marble had changed in what – to them – was so short of a time.

Wars had ravaged it. Famine and disease too. It was less blue and green now as blue and yellow. The forests had been as set upon as the humans that were involved in the wars, its wildlife scattered and pillaged liked one of the villages of soon-to-be refugees that were always the sad consequence of war. The oceans had been too, but they were so vast and so deep – so unexplored – that it did not seem to matter that the humans had fished it to near extinction of many species. There were so much of the ocean left, it seemed bottomless.

How deadly, then, would it be when the humans realized it – like the Earth itself – was not.

Nothing was bottomless. Nothing was endless. Not even the angels themselves. Not even God. Eventually they all would die just as the universe they had created would and, in that bitter dark end, they would meet death as every creature had before them. And they would go into that goodnight with or without the raging that was speculated to happen in so many poems and songs before them.

Not everything is peaceful.

Not even angels.

Not even God.

Not all the time.

It was such a drama that had been set upon the Hosts of Heaven that very day, in fact, between one of their brothers and their benevolent God.

Condemned to Hell for eternity, Mephisto had been banished some ages ago by God. His misdeed was never forgotten among the ranks of his siblings. He had dared to question their father, dared to suggest that his human children were nowhere near worthy of his love. He had said he could not love those creatures, the sinful beings that were somehow supposed to be better than God’s own angels and all the other creatures of Earth. It was a sentiment that many of the angels had and still did agree with, but that none had dared to voice. It was not only against the rules, it was not only disobeying their father, but something they as individuals could not comprehend.

Disobedience was not in their nature.

It was in the human’s.

And it was for this reason, among many others that were spoken during Mephisto’s original trial, that he had disobeyed in the first place. Why was it these ugly sinful creatures, these hairless apes, were allowed to disobey without punishment and they were not? Why were they given the possibility of redemption and the rest of them were not? It seemed hardly fair. And, even now, the angels found themselves, in their private moments, agreeing with what had been said. A few had even considered defecting with Mephisto and joining him in Hell.

A few even had.

But for the most part, the angels obeyed their father, ignored their mutterings of dissent, and pretended they didn’t feel as negatively towards the humans as they truly did. Pessimism now was synonymous with Mephisto’s own manifesto of beliefs and the remaining angels, as much as they sometimes believed they did, did not really want to be sentenced to an eternity in Hell.

It was this thought that kept the crowds of them silent as they sat in their pews in God’s courtroom, staring down at their brother, kneeling before God’s stand, his fists pressed into the marble of the building that was nothing more than a makeshift version of what was on Earth. The trial – or retrial or even appeal as they were called on Earth – could’ve been held in darkness with balls of light as the judge, the jury, and the defendant. But this seemed more dramatic, more appropriate for the trial being held before them.

After all, it had been millions of years since Mephisto’s sentencing. Much had changed.

A man with an olive complexion and long dark hair that went to the middle of his back was the one kneeling before the bench and he nodded once at the statement posed to him. His golden eyes were narrowed to concentrated slits, his face was clean shaven, and his fists were not pressed into the marble not in submission but in deference. It was a sign of respect for the angel before the mounted pulpit, not a sign of subjugation.

The man in the judge’s bench was much different.

God appeared to everyone who looked at them – including the angels – differently. Many saw an elderly white man with an equally white beard and long hair, the typical portrait of the Holy Father portrayed in churches and cathedrals around the globe. Others saw a young man or a middle aged man or a man that was not white. Many saw a woman, a woman that could be as many races as the man. Some saw a child. Some saw an adult. To everyone, God was different and it made a certain amount of sense as, to everyone, God _was_ different. Them appearing differently was to be expected.

“Mephistopheles.”

The voice came from the judge’s bench and sounded as different to the choirs of the angels as it would have to every human on Earth had they been there watching as well.

“You have been called here today as a request to reexamine your sentencing of an eternity in Hell for the trespass of questioning your father’s absolute authority in regards to not only your compassion and adoration of the humans of Earth, but the protection and guidance of them as well.”

“Yes,” Mephisto replied. His voice was as sound as that of his father’s, as deep and resonating and as full of authority. Hell had not turned him into an individual hardened by war, but a general who had learned the fields of battle well and no longer was as affected by the horror and the bloodshed as he once had been.

But he was still affected.

Otherwise he would not have been there.

“Your request, as I am sure you knew it normally would be, has been denied,” God replied, smacking their gavel onto the wood of their bench.

A babble began amongst the angels in the pews, each of them turning to the angel next to them and muttering behind their hands, debating amongst themselves how this would turn out. Mephisto had been denied. He had never asked for reconsideration of his sentence in all the years he had been in Hell and now that he had it had been denied. What would this mean for Heaven? What would it mean for Hell? For Mephisto? And for God?

Mephisto bared his teeth and began to move forwards, his scowl deepening as he said in a voice with a tone that bordered on desperation, “But Father, I –”

“Silence!” He was denied a chance to argue as quickly as he had been denied his freedom. “I said it would normally be denied. However, that is not the case today. There is one way, I believe that this may all be changed.”

The babble stopped amongst the angels. All of them turned and stared first at God and then at Mephisto. They were silent with shock. Had they just heard correctly? There _could_ , in fact, be a way for their prodigal brother to rejoin their ranks? What then would become of Hell? Who would there be to rule in his stead should he complete the task God was about to assign him? There were more questions now than there had been a moment ago, but the angels seemed stricken dumb with this realization. How could they possibly have time to voice all of their thoughts before actually hearing what it was that God wanted Mephisto to do in the first place?

That, it seemed, was more to the point of the question than anything they could pose.

“I have a human on Earth who I am particularly fond of,” God began, sitting back in their chair. “His name is Ariel Faust. If you can tempt him – succeed in tempting him – and take his soul with you into Hell before his death, then you can reclaim your home here in Heaven. If not, you will be resentenced to Hell. There will not be another chance to redeem yourself, so prepare well. And, for your own good, do not fail.”

The silence in the courtroom of Heaven continued. Everyone now was staring at Mephisto, still glaring, but once again kneeling with his fists pressed into the floor beneath him. He seemed frozen for a moment, though due to his stoic expression, no one could tell what the reason was. Finally, very slowly, he began to stand. He drew himself up to his full height and stared at God. Though it was impossible to tell, he seemed, for all the world, to be composing his words, trying to find the right ones to express in this moment. It was odd to see the devil they had all so come to fear and, in many ways, respect, standing before their father speechless.

Finally, he nodded once and said, kneeling once more, this time with his head bowed towards the floor he pressed his fists into, “Thank you, Father.” When he looked up again, he was still glaring, but now also grinning.

“I will not fail you.”

It would be a statement that would haunt him and the angels for the rest of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really want to publish this as a book you can purchase when i am finished with this, but we'll see how that works out.


	2. Center of the Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Move slowly  
> Beyond the colors of my eyes  
> Move slowly  
> Into the corners of my mind  
> Rising like the Pegasus  
> Each and every one of us  
> Released  
> Islands in the sea of dreams  
> Always searching harmony  
> And peace  
> All we find  
> Reject our mind  
> Don't you wonder why  
> \- 'Center of the Universe', Kamelot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i normally have notes at the beginning and end of every chapter i post on here, but we'll see how this goes, since i haven't been keeping track of my thoughts while writing this thus far.

_I have a tale to be told won't you listen tonight_  
Follow me into the core of the fountain of light  
Try to imagine that hope is our ship for the soul  
(Over the ocean the quest of your life lies ahead)  
Maybe together we'll find there's a place for us all  
(Follow the star in your mind, sail along sail along) 

\- ‘Center of the Universe’, Kamleot

Summer had, in Ariel’s opinion, always been the worst season. It was unbelievably hot, miserably sticky, and being outside seemed like a chore with the way even the air could cling to you. There were bugs everywhere. The sun got into your eyes and even scalded you if you weren’t too careful. Trees could only provide so much shade. The same could be said of the meandering clouds, were you lucky enough to find yourself beneath in a cloudy sky rather than a pure blue one.

It was all devastatingly too much.

And it was this thought that found him as he lay on the grass beneath a large oak tree, the shaded patches between the leaves shifting as a soft wind blew through the carefully kept field of the university lawn he was lying on, his backpack to the left of him, his bike on its side to his right. His brows were drawn together in frustration of the sun continuing to hit his closed eyes and he let out a long suffering breath.

Yes, summer was by far the worse.

Sighing again, he rolled over onto his stomach and stared out at nothing in particular, his chin resting on his folded arms. He was, by all accounts, a beautiful young man. He had brilliant piercing eyes that looked like blue silver dollars. His skin was pale white from years spent indoors and in the shade rather than direct sunlight. His hair was dark brown and seemed to be swept across his forehead and skull in waves, almost like that of a painter’s brush. It flopped into his eyes and stirred when the wind lifted the shockingly green leaves above him. He was tall too. Over six feet and imposing to anyone even a few inches shorter. He wore t-shirts, pants with deep pockets, and running shoes. He was twenty-five and the world was at his fingertips.

Or it should’ve been.

It seemed that in the years that had passed since his arrival at school and then his subsequent disillusionment of the whole thing had happened almost overnight. For years, he’d been the top of his class, on the president’s list, doing better than anyone around him could even have hoped of doing. But time had passed and his major – which had changed from aero-space engineering to neuroscience to English teaching and now tilted into medicine – now seemed a fickle schoolboy’s dream rather than actual goal he could one day hope to attain.

What was the point in becoming a doctor when societal collapse was inevitable within a few years due to the ever changing climate anyway? What was the point in flashing off his college diploma when his own father would sneer at it and his mother wouldn’t have time to notice between the three jobs she was working just so he could be in school to begin with?

What was the point of any of it?

There truly seemed to be none.

Life made no sense and nothing had any point.

That had become his latest fascination.

The point of it all.

And what it might be.

Once as a small child, Ariel had spent all of his time wondering this. Between his mother’s father’s yells and his mother’s screams and the sound of flesh on flesh each time the screaming stopped, he’d had plenty of time to mull this over. That is, when he too wasn’t having his own flesh pounded into by the fists of his father. But it was these beatings that fueled the wonder and the ever present question that tormented him all his life: what was the point? What could all of this mean? And it had to mean something. That much he knew. It had to mean _some_ thing even if he couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out what that thing might be.

His father had to drink for a reason.

His mother had to be hit for a reason.

He had to be hit for a reason.

If there was no reason, that meant there was no way to stop the evil in the world and if there was no way to stop it, nothing could be done to prevent it in the first place and, for a young boy being beaten daily, watching his mother be beaten daily, this could not stand.

There had to be a meaning to it. Otherwise she was being hurt for naught and so was he.

So there had to be a reason. There had to be. Even if he couldn’t see it yet, there had to be a reason for all the pain, all the suffering, all the nights of rum soaked terror.

He tried to apply to this to the boys that picked on him at school as well, tried to wonder what the reasoning behind their own muddy hatred was. It couldn’t, in his young mind, be the same as his father’s and, it never occurred to the innocence he still clung to, that they might have fathers of their own that did similar things when it was dark outside and the lights in the neighboring houses were out. He was still a child after all and his world was held together by his own self-centered view of it.

As he grew older and this changed, he thought he figured out the meaning, the point of it all or, if not the point, where to place the blame.

And that was on his own, thin, teenage shoulders.

Who else could be blamed for his father’s drunken rages? Surely not his quiet mother, who could only breathe wrong for their father to fly off the handle. Surely not his father who seemed a slave to the drink he brought home with every paycheck. It had to be him. He was, after all, the one who provoked his father by talking back, by pouring his booze down the drain, by staying up too late, by talking too loud, by walking too fast, by being just far too much.

Who else could be at fault but him?

He saw no one else stepping up to the plate, not even the man who caused all of the misery within his four walls to begin with. So Ariel stepped up and accepted it in full.

It would be years before he would challenge this kind of thinking.

And it would begin and end with Helena.

Ariel had met Helena in grade school. She was a timid girl, though she hid it well, that wore dresses with frills and bows to school. She wore stockings and nice black buckled shoes. She had her hair fixed beautifully everyday, not a strand out of place. She was small with pale white skin and deep brown eyes that were as dark and fathomless as the night sky. Her hair was just as dark, nearly black. In fact, many people thought it was black. Her fashion sense changed over the years, but he would never forget the girl she’d been, wearing clothes far more expensive than anything else anyone else had on. And maybe that was why she was picked on. She was too sweet and her clothes were too nice. She couldn’t have, in the view of her tormentors, kindness _and_ money. It could only be one of the two. So they tried to destroy her kindness, since they could not have her money and, to Ariel’s amazement even to this day, they never succeeded.

Especially when you considered her life behind the riches.

Ariel’s father was a demon with its fingers pasted to the bottle, turning into a being of pure rage and hate the minute he pressed it to his lips.

But if Ariel’s father was a demon, then Helena’s was surely the devil himself, the evil that all other evil things came from. Including Helena’s own mother and younger brother.

The man was imposing, firm, terrifying, a pillar in the community, supported stoutly by her mother who was the voice of the family, the one who did all the small talk and reasoning. It was because of her the family survived, but it was because of the father the family had anything to survive on at all to begin with. And this was due purely to his abuse of Helena.

Over the course of years that he knew her, starting when they were both very small, he drew out of Helena the horrifying details of her home life. Her father hit her, he learned first. Then she admitted he beat her for things that seemed to make far more sense to Helena than what Ariel told her _his_ father beat _him_ for. Then it progressed and she told him the ugly truth of it all: her father visited her bed at night when the rest of the house was sleeping. And what was more: he sold her to others. There were great parties held at her house, parties where she was the main attraction, the feast for the vain to set upon once her siblings were put to bed.

If that were not horrific enough: Helena’s mother knew about it all and, not only helped to orchestrate it, but did so out of jealousy and rage towards her daughter, feeling the child had somehow stolen her husband from her rather than seeing it as her husband preying upon her. Years later when Helena would confront her, she would deny all of this. And Ariel’s hatred of her and the man who dared to call himself one of Helena’s family would grow into something insurmountable, something poisonous, dark, and deadly. Even dangerous.

It would not be until a few years after that, Ariel would realize he loved Helena.

And then everything would change.

But the question would never leave him.

What was the point?

What was the point of his pain? Or his mother’s? Or Helena’s for that matter?

He would never find it in his heart to ask after his father’s pain or the pain of Helena’s parents. The wondering only came to those who had hurt those who could not defend themselves. And he was certain his father and Helena’s parents knew that nothing could be done about their cruelty. It was why it was allowed to continue. It was why after Helena called the police on her parents, wanting only to free herself from their grasp and then was denied this simple wish, Ariel vowed to kill them should he ever see them for himself.

To their luck and his dismay, this had never happened.

But to the question of the wondering: he wondered moreso Helena’s pain than his own.

Though he knew logically through hearing it from Helena and his mother and a few therapists over the years that it was _not_ his fault his father did the things he did, he could not find it in himself to believe any part of this. His pain was deserved. It didn’t matter what he had somehow conned Helena and his mother and therapists to believe. He knew the truth. And the truth was that he deserved it because it was his fault.

This thinking, though he would never admit to it, was the reasoning behind the burn marks on his thighs and the hidden lighters and bits of metal under the floorboard of his bedroom.

But Helena’s pain had no rhyme or reason to it. There was no meaning behind it because it was completely undeserved. Of all the people on this earth, Ariel believed as much as he believed what he did about himself that there was no one least deserving of the agony Helena was put through as her. She was kind, gentle, warm, and giving. She cared about the things no one did. She picked up the cigarette butts that scattered the grounds of parks and walkways, telling him and anyone else who questioned her actions that animals would eat them and die of starvation if she didn’t do this. She was the one who took insects outside to prevent them from being killed by those around her. She was the one who paid attention to the neglected pets of her friends and acquaintances when she visited their homes. She was the one who always made sure everyone was heard in a conversation, even though it was quite rare anyone else paid her the same courtesy.

Helena was, to Ariel, an angel, a descendant of heaven placed upon earth, given goodness and grace and all of the other heavenly virtues you learned of in Catholic Sunday School. She was, to Ariel, in all the ways that mattered, holy. And a world without her, he knew, was not one he wanted to live in.

She told him it was because he loved her that he saw her this way, that this was not how she truly was, but he didn’t believe that. She was so good, so kind, he couldn’t imagine anyone else thinking differently of her. How could anyone – how could her parents, friends, kids at school, several boyfriends, and scores of strangers – want to hurt her? She was too...innocent. Because, despite everything she had suffered, she still had hope. And that was a miracle to him, something he couldn’t fathom were the roles reversed. So to Ariel, Helena was a miracle and a miracle did not deserve the mistreatment she suffered so often from so many.

And it was, of course, this mistreatment that brought him once more back to the question.

What was the point of it all?

What was the point of all of Helena’s pain?

If there wasn’t a point, that meant there was no reason and no reason meant nowhere to place the blame and Ariel knew, this time, where to place the blame, so why couldn’t he figure out why these people, these _monsters_ had set upon a little girl and decided to torture her for so long?

No part of it made any sort of sense to him and it tormented him because this meant he could not figure out how to stop it.

Not without manslaughter anyway and he was fond of remaining out of prison.

Besides, Helena needed him. He couldn’t leave her alone for who knew how long.

 _But maybe,_ a voice he hardly recognized as his own whispered, _that’s what you must do. Maybe only then you’ll find the answers you seek._

Ariel shifted on the grass. His eyelids fluttered. He let out a soft noise in the back of his throat.

His entire body seemed to protest from the idea and yet, at the same time, he felt a flutter of excitement at the prospect as well. Leave everything behind and start anew to find the secrets of the world beyond? It sounded exciting, adventurous.

It sounded exactly like what he wanted to do.

* * *

_I want to know_ __  
_Why did God make me feel_ __  
_There is no more to be answered_ __  
_Maybe God cannot remedy_ __  
_Our souls if he tried_ __  
_I seek peace of mind at least_ _  
_ _And to know I did my best_

\- ‘Farewell’, Kamelot

The apartment Ariel lived in was a small studio in a building that had once been a warehouse on the edge of town. It wasn’t filled with much, though, despite its size, he had plenty of room to spread out. There was a small twin bed in the center of the room, pressed up against the wall. On that same wall, there were shelves that had been built into the wall by either a previous tenant or the landlord. The shelves themselves were covered in books of all kinds (novels, poetry books, textbooks), plants (mostly succulents and a few ferns), some clothes, some old takeout bags with flies buzzing around them, cups, action figures, and various other detritus that may be found in the apartment of a young man in mid-twenties living alone. The far wall from the door was all windows, small sections cut into squares that didn’t quite go from floor to ceiling, but did offer a brilliant view of the outside world all the same. There was a large curtain to one side of the windows that could be drawn across them at night. Near the door was the small kitchenette along with a small table with two chairs pushed up against it nearby. On the other side of the door was the entrance into the small bathroom. It had a bath/shower combo, a small sink, and a toilet. The floor was hardwood and the walls were whitewashed and the floor was scattered with dirty clothes and trash.

Ariel sighed when he entered the apartment. It wasn’t much and it looked more like a dump rather than a living space, but it was home and it was better than moving back in with his mother and father. It shocked him to this day that they were still married. It shocked him even more that his father kept trying to connect with him. He knew the man didn’t really care about him. He just wanted to look like a better person than he actually was and Ariel refused to give him the pleasure.

He closed his apartment door, stepped into the room, and locked the door behind him. He walked towards the kitchenette, picking up stray t-shirts and used jeans on the floor. He threw the pile he accumulated in the small space between the door and the kitchenette onto the counter, then thought better of it and pushed it off, back to the floor.

A part of him felt he really needed to clean his space.

Another part of him felt that if he was going to be leaving soon, there was no point.

He had already decided to keep the apartment while he was gone. He didn’t know how long he would be gone or if he was going to come back, but he would keep it until it became irrelevant. For all he knew, he’d come back within a year and would still want a place to live. It would be nice to have that. If it ended up needing to be vacated, he would ask his friends to empty it for him. Or, better yet, he would take only what he absolutely needed with him on his journey and leave the rest to be thrown out if the apartment was reclaimed by his landlord.

Either way, it didn’t matter.

He was leaving.

He was decided.

He would say goodbye to Helena and the others he cared about and then he was leaving.

It didn’t take him very long to pack. Though he didn’t have any suitcases, he had a large backpack and duffle bag and he managed to stuff all of his worldly possessions into each. The backpack was full of personal items. The duffle bag was full of a few more plus clothes and whatever else he thought might be essential in travels. He had no real idea where he was going exactly. All he knew was that it was going to be away from here and everything this fucking town had meant. The only good part of it was Helena and he could always come back for her, take her away from here, into whatever life of enlightenment he managed to find elsewhere.

He took his bike and decided that was all he would take with him. He was going to go overseas. His bike could be stored beneath whatever plane he took. He could bring it with him. Maybe to London. Or Paris. Maybe he would change his mind and go to New York. Either way, he had what he needed and that was what mattered.

All that was left was to say goodbye.

And the only person he really wanted to say goodbye to was Helena.

It took a considerable amount of effort to not feel guilty about leaving Helena alone. She still lived with her parents and, while the evils of her childhood had not completely persisted, they still abused her emotionally and made her feel worthless. He wanted to take her with him, wanted to bring her with him on his travels, wanted for them to search for answers together.

But he knew he couldn’t.

He wasn’t sure how he knew this. But he did.

Where he was going, Helena could not follow. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Certainly not now.

The way to Helena’s house was one he had gone many times both on bike and in his car. He left his car in the parking lot of his apartment complex now and rode on the bike. He lived far from her. Miles and miles, but biking was something he did a lot, frequently. He could bike across the city and then some. He was in good shape.

Helena’s family lived in the suburbs of the city. Far out in the suburbs of the city.

Her family had once been very wealthy and, as a result, they had a house much larger than any house Ariel had previously lived in. It was three stories including the basement and had six bedrooms, four bathrooms, two living rooms, a sun room, a full sized kitchen, and a completely finished basement complete with two patios and a balcony off the master bedroom. It wasn’t considered a mansion by any means, though, Ariel supposed, to some it may appear to be one, but it wasn’t too far off either and what Ariel did know was that in it he could fit his house, his apartment, and still have room left over.

As he stopped in front of the house now, he stared up at the huge facade, imagining what it might be like to live in someplace so big. He wouldn’t trade his apartment for it. The cost was far too high. He’d rather be poor and live where he was than be rich and have the type of family Helena did.

More than once he’d wondered how she’d survived such evil.

Walking up the driveway, flanked on either side by large stone walls, his hands in his pockets, he felt again the guilt that had followed him all the way from his apartment to here. Leaving Helena behind was not something he wanted to do. But it had to be done. It must be done. He had to search for answers and she had to stay behind.

For reasons he couldn’t fully comprehend, Ariel knew that where he was going would be dangerous and, as insane as it sounded, she would be safer here than with him.

Reaching the door, he rang the doorbell and waited, his hands still stuffed into his pockets, for someone to answer, praying silently it would be Helena and not one of her parents or siblings. No one in her family liked him and he fully understood why: their daughter loved him and he took care of her and more than that, he believed her about how horrible they truly were.

No abuser likes that.

Especially not child abusers.

Especially not child abusers who are parents.

Especially not child abusers who are parents that care about what others think of them.

For that, to Helena’s parents, Ariel was worse than the devil.

But the fact they thought of him like that was something he took pride in.

He didn’t want to be liked by people like them anyway.

The door opened slowly, the sound of the television turned up unnecessarily high filtered out of the square entrance. It seemed that Ariel’s prayers had _not_ been answered. Standing in the doorway was Helena’s mother. She smiled at first before she registered who it was standing on her stoop. Then her smile faltered and turned into something more of a forced friendly smirk than a genuine smile.

Unfortunately – in Ariel’s opinion anyway – Helena’s mother was beautiful. She had dark hair that was nearly black like her daughter’s that cascaded down her back in waves, but was usually held in place by a ponytail that never kept all of the strands in place. She had hazel eyes that could be brown, but appeared bright green in the sunlight. She had white skin that wasn’t too pale but had a nice warm tone due to how much time she spent outside. She wasn’t thin, but she wasn’t fat either and wore clothes that complimented her body type and appearance. She always looked her best, which, in Ariel’s opinion, was only because she was afraid of what someone might say to or think of her if she didn’t.

Though he recognized this was pure insecurity on the woman’s part, the fact she had allowed this insecurity to persist to the point of abusing her daughter was, in his opinion, unforgivable.

Helena once had told him that she believed her parents should never have had children and, though Ariel loved her with everything in him, he couldn’t help agreeing. At least then Helena never would have been born and experienced the pain she had.

However, if Helena’s mother was beautiful, her father was the dead opposite.

A grossly overweight man, he spent his days on the couch watching TV and complaining whenever anyone else wanted to use the television instead. He worked from home in the basement and complained about working all day when, in reality, he spent much of his time watching television shows, playing games, and reading the news on his computer as well as browsing social media sites. It wasn’t just his actions made him ugly, it truly was his appearance as well. He had no neck, his double chin was so large. He could hardly fit into most clothes and looked, in the opinion of some of Helena’s friends, like Jabba the Hut from Star Wars. In fact, that was what some of those friends called him behind his back. It had become a private inside joke between them all.

“Hello Ariel,” Helena’s mother said, her smile tight-lipped. “How are you doing?”

Ariel wanted to smirk. He could tell how much it hurt the woman to present any niceties towards him. “I’m fine. Can I speak to Helena?”

The woman nodded once, then shouted, turning her face in the direction of the stairs just behind her, “Helena! There’s someone at the door for you!”

An incoherent reply made its way down the stairs and then there was the pounding of feet and Helena appeared before him, looking twice as beautiful as her mother with no trace of her father’s ugliness. In many ways, Ariel hardly believed that Helena was her parents’ child. She was so kind, so beautiful and good, he couldn’t fathom how she was the progeny of such horrible people.

Guilt flooded him all over again as Helena smiled at him.

How could he think of leaving her here alone to deal with her parents? The truth of it was, he didn’t know if he would be able to be contacted. He was bringing his phone and charger, but he wasn’t sure how much he really was going to be using either one of those things. For all he knew, this was the end of their relationship, the end of any life they could’ve possibly had together.

His guilt only increased when she stepped out of the house and into his arms, her fingers curling in his clothes holding him tight against her as she told him how much she loved him and missed him. His arms slowly closed around her and his fingers went into her hair, his head bending down and his face pressing gently into the top of her head, taking in her scent – honey and vanilla.

He closed his eyes tight as if in pain.

How could he leave her here? Surely anywhere and anything was better than this.

 _You don’t know that,_ a voice in his mind whispered.

And yes, that was true, he _didn’t_ know that. It could be dangerous. But, in the same vein, it could also be perfectly fine. Why _not_ ask her to come with him?

 _Because what you find will destroy her,_ the same voice whispered.

The voice wasn’t his own. He didn’t know who or what it belonged to, but he believed it. And it was enough to convince him to go forward with what he was about to do.

“Helena,” he said, his voice soft, husky, but pained, “I have to leave.”

Helena pulled back slightly. “Leaving?” she asked very quietly, looking up at him. There was fear and worry in her eyes and Ariel had to look away, the guilt too much to take.

“Yes,” he said to the bushes to his right. “I have to go find answers.”

“What answers?” Her voice was just as soft as before.

“It-it’s hard to explain,” he began, looking down at his shoes, “but I _must_ find the answers to questions I’ve been asking myself since I was a child. If I don’t...I don’t know, I feel like I’ll fall apart if I don’t at least _try_.”

For a moment, there was silence, Helena staring up at him, Ariel staring at his shoes. Then Helena swallowed and said, still quiet, “Will you be back?”

“Yes,” Ariel replied without hesitation, looking up at her again. “I’ll be back. Even if it’s years from now. I’m not going to leave you here forever, Helena. I won’t. I promised you that and I intend to keep that promise even if it takes more time to fulfill it.”

Helena nodded once and stood on her toes.

There were tears in her eyes as she kissed him, her hand on his cheek.

Ariel wrapped his arms around her tightly, kissing her back, tears in his own eyes.

 _I’ll be back,_ he tried to convey through the kiss. _I’m not leaving forever, I’ll be back._

But the truth was, he didn’t know that for sure and the same voice in his head whispered, _No you won’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really happy with how this book is turning out so far. i may or may not publish this for real when i finish this. i'm not sure what i'd have to do legally to make sure i wouldn't get sued, but we'll see.


	3. Opiate Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleepless  
> Not really quite awake  
> Where the soul conforms  
> To deeper needs  
> Free within frames of custody  
> I revolve my spirit and exhale  
> \- 'The Edge of Paradise', Kamelot 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am quite happy with this chapter <3

_On the edge of paradise_

_Poison burning_

_In my veins_

_Unavailing, compromised_

_My dreams remain the same_

\- ‘The Edge of Paradise’, Kamelot

_A year and a half later_

Later Ariel would realize it wasn’t so much the fact he had left rather than what he had left behind that caused him to turn into the man that he was now. Everything he’d left behind was so much better than this aimless wandering and researching in a city he’d never been to and he was hardly familiar with. After flying to London for a year and a half and deciding the British held about as many answers to life’s secrets as he did, he left and landed in New York, which seemed a far more promising prospect.

But so far it wasn’t turning out to be.

The novelty of being a nameless traveler with an incurable wanderlust had long since worn off and Ariel was now left with a diseased emptiness he could not escape.

The city streets were crowded with new faces everyday, never the same face twice. The shops were open all night and there was never any quiet. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if Ariel weren’t all but homeless and had a place of his own to sleep every night, but he didn’t want to get a job and distract himself from his real work and having an apartment in New York felt ridiculous when he was still paying for his apartment back home. In fact, it seemed even more ridiculous when he thought about it terms of what he was doing: why have an apartment in New York? If he was just going to settle down in the City That Never Sleeps, he might as well go home and forget this whole stupid venture.

He had long since run out of money for anything other than food and the monthly rent payment on his apartment back home, so he slept on park benches and in shelters. He slept under overpasses and in dark fields. He slept in trees sometimes even and in darkened alleys. He slept everywhere he could without drawing too much attention to himself or having the police find him and tell him he couldn’t sleep there.

Another reason for sleeping out of doors was how easy it was to score drugs.

Even with how little money he had, he found there were other ways people were willing to give up drugs to vagrants like himself and, while none of them were savory, they all worked. He used heroin, oxycotin, crystal meth, LSD, marijuana, alcohol, ecstasy, and anything else he could get his hands on. Anything to drown the feelings of guilt and failure that plagued him daily.

He knew he could just go home if he really wanted to. Check himself into rehab back home and be done with this foolish chapter of his life, but, every time he truly considered this, he felt more strongly than ever before that he was on the right path, that wherever he was headed was the right direction and to diverge now would lose him his answers forever and then he would be truly lost.

This thought always made him laugh.

Truly lost. He said that as though that wasn’t what he was already.

Here he was in New York City, homeless, addicted to anything that could get him high, and he somehow thought he wasn’t really lost.

It was laughable.

Ariel even let out a laugh as he lay on the bank of some man made river, smoking a cigarette – another bad habit he’d picked up as it helped with the withdrawals – staring up at the darkening sky, the smoke in his mouth flying up into the blackening, starless sheet overhead as he did so.

He was thankful it was starless.

Stars reminded him of Helena.

So did the river flowing nearby and the ocean a little further off.

So did the clouds in the sky and the blue neon signs he saw on every other street corner once the sun went down and all the rest of the other neon signs came up.

So did too many other things.

She was his biggest regret. He had left her behind and he hadn’t even thought twice about it. He’d left her in a house of monsters with hardly a goodbye to be spoken. Who knew what had happened to her in the years since he’d been gone? She could’ve been killed by them in a fit of rage – though she claimed her parents had stopped beating her ages ago – she could’ve killed herself in a fit of sorrow. She could’ve died of some horrible disease.

She could’ve forgotten all about him.

Frankly, the last one was what he truly hoped for.

Helena deserved better than some sad wanderer that could never find happiness because he was never satisfied with the answers he _did_ have rather than the ones he sought.

Ariel closed his eyes, blowing smoke out through his nose as he did so. For a moment, he imagined Helena. He imagined her in an apartment in the downtown of their city with a new boyfriend or girlfriend, one who cared about her. They lived in a warehouse apartment like his because she’d always wanted one of those. It was also a studio. It was covered in plant life and books. There were several cats. And the significant other took care of her. They bandaged her cuts when she used a razor on herself like she had so many times since before she was a teenager. They made her chicken noodle soup and brought it to her in bed when she was sick. They cleaned up after her when she was too tired to do it herself. They rubbed her feet when she was tired. They watched movies together and laughed and went out on all of the romantic dates Ariel had never been able to take her on.

And they loved each other. They loved each other more than anything.

It was what Helena deserved: true everlasting love, something Ariel believed he was completely incapable of giving to anyone. Even his mother. Even Helena. He was too damaged by the world, too jaded. How could he love when everything was a myth or a mystery?

He couldn’t. That was the simple fact of it. He couldn’t.

Ariel opened his eyes and stared up at the sky again, breathing steadily. His current high was wearing off. He needed to go find something else to get him intoxicated before he went to the séance one of the other junkies he knew had invited him to that evening.

In truth, he wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to go. He believed in the occult, sure, but going to a séance sounded like a bad idea under any circumstance. He couldn’t fathom any scenario in which this was a good idea – summoning spirits and perhaps demons to a table of strangers and potentially vulnerable souls – but he’d agreed to go anyway.

Perhaps it was because he no longer cared about anything, including his own life.

Perhaps it was because he felt, if he could not have Helena, if he could not find his way back to her, he would rather be dead.

 _Just go home,_ the same doubting voice whispered as it did every time he had this thought. _Just go home, find her, love her, marry her, and live without shame. Be happy, Ariel._

 _You can’t,_ the voice of reason that had convinced him not to bring Helena with him to begin with reminded him. _If you go home now, you will be going home empty handed and you will be lost forever. You think you’re lost now? Just you wait until you fail. Then you’ll know what the meaning of the word wasted truly is. Is that what you want, Ariel? Failure? Do you want to fail at this as you’ve failed at everything else in life? Is that what you want?_

No it wasn’t. It wasn’t what he wanted.

But he did want Helena. And he wasn’t sure how much of himself could survive this for much longer. Everything was beginning to fall apart and blur together at the same time.

Logically, he knew it was the drugs.

Realistically, he didn’t care.

Sitting up, Ariel sucked in a breath and pushed himself to his feet.

The world swayed around him and he stared down at the river, the glint of the light on the water showed him how fast it flowed out to the bay and then the sea. He wondered if every drop of water traveled every part of every body water on earth. It certainly seemed possible. Time was meaningless to the waves, the clouds, the ocean, the rivers, the seas. Time meant nothing to nature.

Alternatively, time meant everything to him.

And he felt he was running out of it.

Turning away from the water, Ariel shoved his hands into his pockets, his cigarette still dangling from his lips, and climbed up the embankment back towards the blinding lights of the city. He walked down an alley, searching the faces of those he saw along it, looking for someone with more lucidity to their expression.

The dealers, interestingly enough, were the ones that were always sober, something Ariel found more than a little suspicious.

But he wanted to get high too badly to care that much.

The first dealer he found was a block over and Ariel had to dodge other junkies, other homeless people begging for money, and even a few police cars patrolling the area before he was able to duck into another alley and search for someone who could give him something.

The man he finally found wasn’t very tall. He looked Hispanic, but Ariel couldn’t really tell in the dark and with the man’s hood up. It didn’t matter to Ariel too much who he was or where he was from, really. As long as he had something good, something strong, it hardly mattered to him who he was getting it from. It still surprised him that a lot of other addicts – the vast majority of them white – felt differently about this. He didn’t know what it was exactly the other addicts thought a dealer of another race was going to do to them, but it had to be something akin to poisoning he supposed for them to avoid them altogether. Either that or their prejudices had to be very firmly held.

“What do you have?” Ariel asked the man without preamble.

The dealer eyed him suspiciously. “What’re you talking about, man?”

This was a common reaction to him asking for drugs. Ariel wasn’t entirely sure why. He was just as dirty as the other addicts, just as desperate, just as strung out. Maybe it was the fact he always got straight to the point without any small talk. That might be a trait of cops trying to catch dealers. Not that he would know. Ariel didn’t deal. He just bought. And then used whatever he got as quickly as possible, hoping to get as high as possible as fast as he could.

Being high meant not thinking and not thinking was exactly what he wanted to do.

And tonight he was not in the mood to dance around the paranoia of the dealers.

He frowned. “You _know_ what I’m talking about.”

The dealer frowned right back. “No, I don’t, man.”

Ariel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m not a cop, okay? I don’t know why everyone thinks that, but I’m about the further thing from a cop there is. I’ve got a lot of cash. Can you...please just let me know what you have?”

The dealer sighed, grabbed Ariel by the arm and pulled him deeper into the alley where the shadows would obscure them completely. There were too many cops nearby for them to deal any sort of deal out in the open. Though that was the way it was in New York: with so many people all converged in one place, everyone was always watching you.

“I’ve got a full bag of oxy for $350,” the dealer said quietly. “I’ve got a full bag of speed for $100 more and I’ve got half a bag of heroin for the same price. Plus some weed, which depending on how much you want could be anywhere from $20 to $150.”

Ariel chewed the inside of his lip as he contemplated this, his hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets. Finally, he said, “Give me everything you have. I’ve got $1500 on me.”

The dealer looked shocked, but he shrugged and said, “Alright, man, but you really better have the thousand and a half. I’m not gonna wait around here for you to get more from your bank account or whatever. I’ll give you what you have money for. That’s it.”

Ariel nodded once. It seemed fair.

He pulled out the wad of cash and counted out the bills while the dealer counted out the drugs. They traded what the other was holding. Ariel was left with only $100 after the purchase. He nodded to the dealer and left the alley quickly, planning on finding a quiet place to shoot up before making his way to the séance. It was supposed to be on fifty-first street, which wasn’t too far, but it was far enough that Ariel knew he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts for that long.

The park was by far the best place to shoot up at night. It was dark, desolate, and easy to hide in. It was hardly patrolled for reasons beyond his comprehension, which was to the favor of everyone in the park. It was the reason so many people warned others not to go into the park at night. It was a playground for all of the unsavory types. Not just drug addicts, but rapists, kidnappers, muggers, and even a few murderers. He’d learned very fast that New York was less the glittering city of promise and more the city of crime and decadence.

But it was within the park Ariel had hidden his things. In the year and a half he’d been there, much of what he’d brought with him had been stolen. He no longer had his bike or a great deal of his clothes, but he still had most of his personal items to his complete and utter surprise. He kept moving his hiding place, but it was always within the park, mostly because no one dared to enter in there and during the day it was too hard to steal what with the place crowded. It was a different story at night.

Ariel walked swiftly through the park, his hands stuffed into his pockets, clutching the drugs in his fists. He kept his head down, trying to get as quickly as he could to his hiding place: an old unused sewage drain that was on the edge of the southern side of the park. The place was sparsely populated and the drain was well hidden beneath an overgrown patch of grass. In the dark, it looked like the edge of the bank of the man made lake the drain sat on, not what it actually was.

Once he had cared where he left his things at night. Once he had cared if his clothes and his bike and his bags were sitting in a puddle of sewer water while he wandered around the city during the day. But caring had led to his things getting stolen and, sick of being robbed, Ariel no longer cared. He scuttled down the embankment and dropped into half an inch of sewer water. He no longer even smelled the rank stench that came from the large metal tunnel where he kept his things. He walked several feet into the tunnel before he found his backpack and duffle bag. Using a flashlight he’d purchased over a year ago, he looked through his things, making sure everything was there before he fished out his needle, spoon, and lighter, and moved his things even deeper into the tunnel. When he reemerged, he clambered halfway back up the embankment before sitting, pulling out the heroin.

Not very long ago, Ariel had thought he would never be a drug addict. He knew what drugs did to you. He knew what that life resulted in. He’d seen it in his friends, in the news, on TV, in movies, even in ads. He had never thought he would end up as one of those people.

But he had grossly misjudged how easy it was to fall into his own thoughts when he was left alone, when he no longer had school and work and Helena to distract him from them. He had found that in London and had begun using there. He’d thought leaving that city where he knew all of the dealers would stop him from continuing to use. But that had been a foolish notion. The night he’d landed in New York, he’d gone into the park and found a dealer and here he was, shooting up heroin on the edge of a half drained ancient man made lake.

The heroin seemed to open him up, change the way he saw the world, make him see the stars.

As thankful as he had been earlier for the starlit sky, he was just as thankful now for the millions of stars that exploded in the sky above him as the drug hit his blood and raced through his veins. Seeing the stars meant he was closer to Helena and, not for the first time, he wondered if she were looking at the sky right now, thinking of him.

His thoughts were not as kindly now towards the potential significant other she may have as they had been earlier. Now he wished more than ever that he had never left. Even with the drug flowing through his veins, he wished she were beside him.

If she were beside him, he wouldn’t be getting high to begin with.

 _But that’s your fault,_ he reminded himself. _And even if you went back now, you wouldn’t deserve her. You left her in a house of horrors. What makes you think you’re good enough for her?_

The stark truth of it was he wasn’t good enough for her. Not in any way. Not at all.

He let out a laugh, this one much more broken and defeated than the one on the embankment of the river had been. Even the drugs couldn’t take away the full force of his guilt of leaving her.

Sucking in a breath, he dug into his pocket and felt for the marijuana. He’d also gotten his bowl and grinder out of his pack of things as well – two things he was still shocked hadn’t been stolen, though he felt that might be because he’d taken to wrapping them in dirty underwear to prevent exactly things from happening – and ground up the bud, then packed his bowl and began to smoke.

The marijuana took away some of the guilt, but not enough and before too long he was reaching into his pocket again for the oxycotin.

He knew full well that taking too many different drugs could result in an overdose, but, truly, he didn’t care. If he died, it would be just as well. It would be what he deserved.

It would be what he wanted.

But that wasn’t what happened.

His guilt subsided a bit more and he remained alive against all his wishes.

* * *

_Soothing but yet so violent_

_In this world within the other world_

_Moonlight, in visions...heaven sent_

_I see demon eyes and wings unfurl_

\- ‘The Edge of Paradise’, Kamelot

A part of him, a rather large part, wanted to smoke the rest of the marijuana and then take the meth as well, but that would be foolish. Then he’d have nothing to help him sleep that night. So, instead, he forced himself upright into a sitting position and then stood.

The world swayed around him, the lake glittering beneath him. Due to the heroin, it looked a lot more beautiful than it might have otherwise. Everything did.

The only thing that he could not see beauty in was himself and what he’d done.

 _You’re a monster, Ariel Faust,_ a voice told him bitterly. _Only a monster would leave her behind in a place like that._

It seemed to be his only thought, the only one that was circling through his brain over and over and, as he began to walk away from the lake, his hands stuffed back into his pockets, it pounded into his consciousness with every step that he took.

_Failure. Monster. Failure. Worthless. Monster. Failure. Worthless._

Ariel clenched his teeth, his eyes focused on his shoes as he walked out of the park and headed in the direction of fifty-first street. He told himself with every step he took that going to a séance would take his mind off of all of this, but he wondered if that really were the truth. He’d seen movies and read books where the séance leaders delved into the pasts of those at the table and used that as a conduit for the spirits they wanted to summon. Ariel prayed this would not happen tonight. He had no one dead that he cared for. He had no one he wanted to summon. But, really, in the grand scheme of the séance itself, that meant nothing. He could still have some way to bring out spirits from his past he was unaware even existed. That had been a key element of the stories he’d seen and read as well.

The building the séance was to be held in was an old, crumbling brownstone and, as Ariel approached it, he couldn’t help staring up at the facade, thinking that this was exactly the type of place he would expect a séance to be held. The street was dark and the bricks of the building looked black in the dim light. The building itself was dark as well. There were no lights to be seen on in any of the windows and he wondered if he had the wrong address. But, as he ascended the steps, he saw a sign, tacked to the door, that read:

Madam Marsten: Séances, tarot readings, palm readings, and other fortunetellings within. Prices start at $50 for an hour.

It had to be the right place.

He knocked on the door and waited, hoping he didn’t look like a total idiot knocking on the door of a building that, for all the world, appeared – with its dilapidated frontage and darkened windows – to be deserted.

The door opened almost instantly, revealing an elderly woman dressed in a dress made of soft flowing fabric. She had a scarf wrapped around her head and another around her waist that had jingling coins attached to it. She was clearly Romani with her dark hair and eyes and olive complexion. Her eyes pierced him and her full lips were pressed into a thin line as she stared at him from the crack in the door as she’d opened it.

“State your business.” Her tone was heavily accented and her voice was curt.

Ariel swallowed hard. “I’m here for a séance. I was invited by a friend.”

“What friend?”

Ariel swallowed again, struggling to remember the name of the girl who had invited him. “Sarah,” he finally said, the name coming to him all at once. “Sarah...I don’t know her last name. She just said to be here tonight if I wanted to participate.”

The woman stared at him for a long time, so long that Ariel was certain she was going to throw him out, tell him never to return, tell him there was no Sarah there and to be on his way. But she didn’t do any of those things. She opened the door wider and stepped aside, saying in the same curt heavily accented voice, “The room is straight down the hall The lavatory, should you need to use it, is the door right before the opened door at the end of the hall. The end of the hall is where we will be.”

Ariel nodded as he tentatively stepped into the building. “Thanks,” he said, his voice quiet.

The interior of the main room was dimly lit, lamps covered by scarves of various colors. There were also scarves covering the walls along with large bits of fabric that were modern day tapestries. There were some woven tapestries as well. To the left of the door was a small living room set up. There were two long couches facing each other. Both of them were black and cushioned. The pillows at each end of them were equally dark and had tassels on all sides of them. There were an obsidian coffee table between the two of them, covered with occult reading material. There was a bookshelf pressed up against the wall, full of more books, some plants, and more than a few crystals and crystal balls.

The room looked exactly how Ariel would imagine a witch’s lair to appear.

Following the woman’s instructions – he could only assume she was Madame Marsten – he went down the hall that was as dark as the front entrance had been to the room at the end. The hallway was covered in photographs from time periods long past. Victorian families, young Victorian portraits, images of the world wars, images of the era of the dust bowl, and even the industrial revolution.

When he reached the room at the end of the hall, it was lit dimly by a few ancient looking oil lamps, the flames within them flickering lazily. The room itself was, much like the small living area, covered in scarves and tapestries of various sizes and colors. At the center of the room, was a large circular mahogany table. There was a small white doily in the center upon which stood a crystal ball.

The heroin made everything sparkle, the colors twice as vibrant, the light twice as bright.

There was already a small group of people sitting in the chairs around the table, their hands palm down on the tabletop. They all looked up when he entered.

Feeling nervous about being watched, Ariel nodded once and took one of the only empty seats at the table, placing his hands on the tabletop like those around him. A moment later, Madame Marsten appeared. The table was round and there was no head, but she took the seat that seemed to be the head anyway – directly across from Ariel – and let out a breath as she nodded to each person at the table in turn, fixing them with her piercing gaze as she did so.

“Welcome,” she said, her voice much quieter and less curt than before. “A few I recognize. Others are new. I do not believe in introductions. We will do what we have come to do and then we will leave and you will be different for it.”

Ariel wasn’t sure what it was they had come here to do. He saw Sarah, sitting near Madame Marsten, and tried to catch her eye, tried to ask her with only a look what was going on, but she never looked at him. She was gazing in rapt attention at the Romani woman who had turned her hands palm up and was now saying, “Please join hands.”

Without speaking, everyone took the hands of those next to them.

Ariel watched the faces of the others, trying to gauge their reactions, wondering if any of them were as confused and nervous as he was, but none of them seemed to be, their expressions impassive,

“Please,” Marsten went on, “bow your heads and close your eyes.”

Trying not to raise his eyebrow and look like a skeptic, Ariel did this. He didn’t understand what was going on and something about it made his heart beat rapidly.

Something about this seemed incorrect, dangerous, not right.

His old fears about the séance itself resurfaced and he thought about pulling away.

 _Don’t,_ a voice, the same voice who had convinced him to leave Helena, whispered. _You must stay. You must see your future._

Ariel didn’t know what exactly that meant or what would become of him if he allowed this to happen, but it was these words – the words he trusted so well, though he didn’t understand why, nor knew where they came from – that kept him still and silent, not moving from his place.

“Now,” Marsten went on, “imagine seeing the world beyond this one. Imagine what it might look like. Imagine its intricacies. Imagine its differences and similarities. It is the only way we will summon any spirits. We must make them believe that we are the same as them. They will not be afraid or hesitant to join us that way.”

Afraid? The spirits were afraid of this world? That didn’t make sense to him, but he did as the woman told anyway, imagining what he thought the world beyond this one looked like, Marsten chanting and muttering in Roma as everyone at the table did this.

The world he imagined was far less kind than he supposed some of the others thought of. He wanted to believe in a heaven, in a wonderful world beyond this one, but he couldn’t make himself. He had seen too much, experienced too much, to believe any form of existence to be anything other than painful. What he pictured was a world of fire and darkness, of screams and agony, of blood and horror, of a ruler, trying to kill and torture all under him.

What he pictured was far closer to Hell than any sort of Heaven.

“I feel...something,” Marsten said. Her voice sounded different, almost apprehensive. What was it that she felt? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be anything good.

Ariel opened his eyes, looking at her.

The woman was twitching, moving her head back and forth. Ariel sucked in a breath, his eyes darting to the others around the circle, but they were oblivious to the woman’s torment, their eyes still closed, their hands still clasped tightly together. A part of him wanted to get up and help the woman, but the rest of him, a rather large part – a sick vile part, he would later decide – wanted to watch, wanted to see what would happen.

Then, without warning, the woman’s eyes snapped open.

Instead of the golden eyes Ariel had seen when he entered the building, he saw eyes made of pure black as though pupils had engulfed the irises. The woman’s face twisted in a fierce grimace, almost a grotesque smile and the voice that issued from between her lips was not her own. It was deep, guttural, sounding almost animal rather than human.

“You know not what you toy with, human child.”

This caught the attention of the others at the table. Almost as one, their heads snapped up, their eyes opened and they turned to Marsten, their mouths open in perfect O’s.

But Ariel saw none of this. His eyes were fixed on the woman across the table from him.

Just as her eyes were fixed on him. She was speaking, he realized, to him. Whatever they had summoned – whatever _he_ had summoned – was speaking to him.

“You’ve played in the pool of obscurity for far too long,” the voice went on, raising the hairs on the back of Ariel’s neck. “Time for you to come out and play with the other souls. Time for hide and seek to end. Time for me to find you... _Ariel Faust._ ”

The confirmation that the words were meant for him alone was short lived. A moment later, he felt as though he’d been punched in the chest and he was thrown back as images began to race through his mind all at once, images he had not conjured there himself.

A world aflame, screams heard from every corner of it, nothing but red and yellow and orange and black, nothing but blood and agony and fear.

Rivers of blood running through streets.

Humans walking with their heads turned all the way around, their necks broken, their lips twisted into smiles as grotesque as Marsten’s had been, their eyes black too.

Legs poking up out of cracks in cobbled stones, screams heard from within.

And above it all, a figure with twisted goat’s horns and leathery black wings with eyes as black as midnight, chanting in what Ariel could only assume was Latin. The figure’s eyes fixed on Ariel and he leered saying again, but this time in Latin, the words that had just been spoken.

“ _Time for me to find you, Ariel Faust. Your time is up!_ ”

Ariel let out a cry and lunged forward and suddenly the real world came back to him and he heard someone shouting his name, a voice he didn’t recognize. The world swam back into focus and he found himself on the ground of the room of the séance, a girl with blonde hair leaning over him, tapping his face, looking worried.

“Ariel! Wake up!” she was shouting.

For a moment, Ariel wondered how this random girl knew his name. Then he realized it was Sarah, the girl who had invited him to the séance to begin with.

He swallowed and looked at her. “What happened?” he asked, his words slurring slightly from grogginess and confusion.

Sarah closed her eyes and let out a breath of relief. When she opened her eyes again, she said, “You flew back and then fell over. You started convulsing at the same time Madame Marsten did. You...you woke up, but...” She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the woman who had started the séance to begin with. “But she hasn’t yet. She’s...having some kind of seizure. We called an ambulance...” It sounded from her tone, she didn’t really believe this was going to do any good.

Ariel sat up slowly, his head still swimming and now pounding as well. He winced. The effects of the heroin were already beginning to wear off and everything was significantly less bright than it had been when he’d first arrived. He blinked several times, clearing the black spots that kept appearing in front of his vision to try to see what was going on across the room.

Everyone else at the table had crowded around the woman and there was nothing to see until Ariel heaved himself to his feet with the help of Sarah and staggered over to her. He broke through the small circle of bodies and sucked in a breath.

The woman was surely dead.

There was foam issuing from her mouth, her whole body was shaking and blood was dripping from her ears, nose, eyes, and mouth, turning the foam around her lips pink. Even her fingernails were bleeding. Her eyes were still as black as they had been moments earlier when – whatever entity he’d seen in his mind – had been speaking to him.

Sarah pressed a hand to her mouth.

Someone else darted from the room to vomit.

A third person was speaking into their cell phone, calling the paramedics, telling them everything that was happening in a shaking voice.

Ariel remained where he was, frozen in shock.

This was his fault. He didn’t know how exactly, but he did know that much.

This was his fault. The woman was dead because of him, because of what he had pictured. Somehow he had summoned his fears into the present and made them a reality. The horror of it all was only slowly beginning to sink in.

Without really thinking about it, Ariel turned on his heel and ran from the room. He ran back down the claustrophobic hallway of pictures from eras long passed, he ran out the door and ran down the street. He ran past streetlights, alleyways, the park, shops, neon lights, everything. He didn’t stop running until he reached the Manhattan bridge. There he clung to the railing, his chest heaving, a scream welling in his throat. He wouldn’t be able to hold it back.

Falling to his knees, Ariel pressed his fist into his mouth and yelled.

It couldn’t be heard over the sound of the traffic rushing by him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you can't tell, the voice in ariel's mind is mephisto.


	4. Descent of the Archangel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Speak my friend  
> You look surprised  
> I thought you knew  
> I'd come disguised  
> On angel wings in white  
> I can make  
> Your dreams come true  
> What a couple  
> Me and you  
> On journey through the night  
> I will show you everything so vividly  
> You can't deny me  
> \- 'Descent of the Archangel', Kamelot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i originally tried to write this, this was the chapter i got stuck on. finally i've gotten past it.

_Bathed in moonlight_

_I’m proclaimed by angel’s cry_

_Think well_

_Do take your time_

_Because your soul_

_Will be mine the day you die_

\- ‘Descent of the Archangel’, Kamelot

When Ariel stopped screaming, despite the traffic, the world seemed oddly silent, everything swirling around him in an endless torrent of soundlessness that he could recognize or fathom. He felt a strange calm too and didn’t know what to do other than stare out across the city and the river in the quiet. His fingers loosely gripped the rail of the bridge, the wind ruffling his hair, tears he didn’t remember crying freezing on his cheeks as the city lights blinded him.

It was his fault that woman had died.

He hadn’t known her and, though his carelessness, he had killed her.

Ariel believed in the supernatural. He had never been sure why exactly, but he’d known he did. He should’ve known better than to think of such horrible things. Thinking about things like that, during a séance no less, only invited them into your life. It was one of the reasons he’d never played around with a Ouija board. There was too much that could go wrong.

And now too much had.

He knew the police wouldn’t come for him. No one else blamed him for Madame Marsten’s death, though by all rights he knew they should. He would stay on this bridge until morning and no one would be the wiser.

The figure with the goat’s horns and leather wings swam through his head and he wondered what exactly it could’ve been. His first impulse was the devil, but even thinking it sounded ridiculous. Saying it out loud even more so. But what else could the figure have been? He was certain – now more than ever – that it was this figure that had killed Madame Marsten and that it was him that had somehow summoned the figure to the table during the séance.

So what did it all truly mean?

In truth, the meaning of what had happened wasn’t important.

Madame Marsten was still dead because of him and he was still worthless.

His eyes darted from the city to the river directly beneath him. He stared at the undulating current, the small waves, the black silky water.

 _End it all,_ a voice whispered in his mind. _Die. Take the disease of yourself out of this world._

It wasn’t a bad idea. And it wasn’t an idea he hadn’t had before. Suicide was always an option. The last option, but an option nonetheless. Perhaps it was always where he had been headed. Thinking about it now, that made the only logical sense.

He’d not been able to save his mother due to his own weakness.

He’d left Helena behind due to his own stupidity.

And now he’d killed a woman through his own ignorance.

He was a danger to everyone and everything around him. He needed to be eliminated, the deadly common denominator between all of that heartache.

He needed to die.

Before he really knew what he was doing, Ariel climbed atop the railing, his hand now clutching at one of the cables holding up the bridge as he stared down into the blackness beneath him. The distance was far enough that he would hit the water and it would be like concrete. His insides would be smashed up and then, maybe, probably, unable to save himself, he would drown.

He smirked at the thought, his lips only barely turning up at the corners.

It was exactly the sort of death someone like him deserved.

The death of a coward, the death of a traitor, the death of a failure, a cheat, a liar, an addict.

The death of someone so worthless his own father didn’t want him.

He closed his eyes and let out a breath.

He moved one foot forward, preparing to step off the railing.

“You don’t want to be doing that.”

Ariel’s eyes snapped open and the arm of the hand not holding the cable pinwheeled in a desperate attempt to keep his balance as he tried to wheel around at the sound of the voice.

A few yards off, wearing a suit that was colored entirely black and matching loafers was a tall devastatingly handsome man with slicked back dark hair and smooth pale white skin. He was smoking a cigarette, held between the forefingers of one hand, the other stuck into his pocket. He was looking up at the sky, blowing smoke at the far off stars, but, when Ariel turned to him from his perch on the railing, the man’s eyes flicked away from the heavens and he leered.

It was the only way to describe the sinister yet somehow charming upturning of his lips.

Ariel couldn’t help feeling both nervous and endeared towards the man. He would later wonder what all of that meant.

Ariel teetered on the edge of the railing, barely held in place by his fingers wrapped securely around the bridge cable. For several moments, he was speechless, staring in wonderment at this man before he finally swallowed and managed to say, “Who are you?”

The man swept his arm comically to one side and gave a low bow as he said, “Mephistopheles.” Then he looked up at Ariel, not straightening as he added, the leer returning, “But you may call me Mephisto, the name my brothers and sisters have chosen from me, the name my father ignores.”

As he said this, his leer grew and, for just a moment, his eyes glowed deep red and Ariel saw a flash of the goat horned figure in his head.

He blinked and shook his head, clearing it of the image, balking at its impossibility and shoving the thought away as he said through gritted teeth, his eyes closed, “Why do you care if I throw myself in the river? You don’t even know me.”

His eyes opened just in time to see the man shrug one shoulder and say, “Perhaps not, but I do know that your life would be wasted if you were to do such a thing. Aren’t there things you want before you leave this life? Things you want to do?” He paused, then to smoke before he added, smiling again, “Questions you want answered?”

Ariel’s eyes widened slightly and he sucked in a breath.

Who was this man? What did he know? And why was he here?

It seemed he had more questions he wanted answered than just the one that had been plaguing him relentlessly since childhood.

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling a twinge of defiance and said, “What do you know? What makes you think I’ll _ever_ find the answers to my questions?”

The man – Mephisto – threw his cigarette butt over the railing into the river below, shrugged one shoulder and scoffed the toe of his boot as he began to walk towards Ariel, who was now very slowly getting down off the railing to meet the man approaching him. “Let’s just say I have friends in high places. I can show you everything so vividly. And once I have, you won’t deny me.”

Again Mephisto’s eyes seemed to glow a heavy crimson.

Ariel drew his brows together suspiciously. “What does that mean?”

“Tell you what,” Mephisto went on as though Ariel hadn’t spoken, “I’ll take you to my home. I’ll show you what I can do and how I can help you on your quest. I can give you the answers you seek, Ariel Faust. I swear that much to you. But I do have one condition.”

“What?” Ariel asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“When you die, your soul is mine.” Mephisto leered once more.

For a moment, Ariel sucked in another breath, the leathery winged figure flashing through his mind again and thoughts of devils and demons ran through his mind. Running right now was starting to sound more and more like a good idea. He didn’t remember telling Mephisto his name.

But then, suddenly, all at once, the man seemed far less menacing and much more theatrical than he had a moment ago. The glowing red eyes were obviously contacts hit by the moonlight and surrounding streetlights The dark suit was a costume. Even his slicked back hair was part of the act. He was _trying_ to appear to be the devil and foolish Ariel had almost fallen for it. What really did this man think he could do to him? And what questions did he really think he could answer, though Ariel hadn’t even revealed what they might be? 

Either way, whatever happened now couldn’t be any worse than what had happened only an hour ago. And sleeping somewhere warm sounded much nicer than going back to the park and sleeping in a tree or the sewage pipe.

“Alright,” he said.

Mephisto leered.

They left the bridge.

* * *

_In the splendor of the night_

_I’ve found company_

_Once again I feel that life’s begun_

_All the wrong’s seem to be right_

_Drown in ecstasy_

_Every star is like a newborn sun_

\- ‘A Feast For The Vain’, Kamelot

Mephisto led Ariel from the Manhattan bridge to a side street where a black limousine was parked. A chauffeur wearing dark sunglasses stood by the car’s back door as though he’d been waiting for them all along and, as they approached, opened the door for them. Mephisto gestured into the car, suggesting without words that Ariel should climb in first. His apprehension now totally gone, Ariel did so, finding the interior to be made of custom leather. There was a mini bar with alcohol and drinks in a refrigerated area. On the wall behind which there would be the driver’s cockpit – for lack of a better term – there was a television screen. Ariel assumed there was somewhere a DVD player or a remote and you could turn on TV or a movie.

Whoever Mephisto was, he decided, he was very rich.

The door closed behind Mephisto and the limousine began moving up the street in the direction of downtown Manhattan. Ariel watched the world go by outside the tinted windows. It was almost comforting to be behind them, knowing he could see the world, but it couldn’t see him. He smiled at the thought as he passed a group of young adults that stared at the car as it went by.

The city glittered at night and, even with his current horror, Ariel couldn’t stop himself from appreciating it as they drove through it in the limo. The neon lights affixed to the frontages of buildings, declaring brightly what was housed inside; the various musical tracks pouring from the open doors of bars, stores, apartment buildings, hotels, and restaurants; other cars, motorcycles, and limos passing by on the road; the groups of people, dressed and decked out for a night on the town in costumes that were the envy of all the rest of the country and – in some cases – the rest of the world.

New York was a city of beauty and promise when you were trapped in the dark slimy underbelly that Ariel had thrown himself into when he’d come back to the United States after his year and a half in London. It seemed only now with the help of Mephisto he was being allowed to see it.

In an instant, Ariel felt a flash of warmth for the man and gratefulness as well.

Only moments ago, he’d been ready to step off a bridge and into eternal darkness.

Now he was in a limousine, experiencing life as it never had been before.

It was a miracle. Life till now had been a waste. Mephisto had proved to him that by the hand of living he was truly graced in ways he’d never been able to recognize until now.

It was something he knew he would never be able to repay him for.

It seemed as though the limo drove for hours, slowly moving through the city, permitting Ariel to see every inch of it in a light he had never witnessed it in before. And just as he was getting bored, feeling ready to get to wherever it was they were going, the limo stopped in front of a large apartment building with bricks that shone a deep obsidian. In the darkness, with all the lights of the city illuminated for the evening, and with how black the facade was, the building looked as though it were flashing all the colors of the rainbow and, as Ariel exited the vehicle, he found himself quite unable to tear his eyes away from it. The visual effect was truly stunning.

“This is my apartment building,” Mephisto said, staring up at the facade with Ariel, his hands stuffed once more into the pockets of his black trousers. “I live in the penthouse at the top.”

Ariel could only manage to nod in response, too in awe of the beauty of the building itself.

Of course Mephisto would live here. Of course he would. It only made sense. After all he had just seen, it was to be expected that his newfound friend would live in the most beautiful building in the city. Or at least, the most stunning.

“Come.” Mephisto led him inside to a lobby as awesome as the building’s exterior. It was a stark contrast from the outside as the interior was made of white marble and ivory rather than the deep black obsidian of the building’s exterior. There were veins of black in the marble flooring, but the ivory front desk was pure white with no stains or any sign of wear and tear. The elevators doors were a golden bronze and the stairs leading up to the second floor at the end of the hall after the small lobby were also made of marble and ivory with a golden rug covering them. The chairs in the lobby were also made of white leather fabric and pin cushioned in places to add a sense of wealth.

Ariel couldn’t stop himself from crossing the room to touch them.

Not for the first time since the bridge did he wonder who Mephisto was that he was able to own a limousine and a chauffeur and afford living in such a spectacular building.

“Ariel,” Mephisto said, a trace of impatience in his tone now. “This way.”

He was standing by the elevators, the doors of which one were open.

Ariel moved away from the lobby chairs and darted into the elevator. Mephisto stepped smoothly inside, pressed the button for the penthouse and the elevator began to rise, neither of them speaking as they rose to Mephisto’s home. When the elevator dinged and the doors opened again, Ariel sucked in another breath of awe, staring at the scene before him.

The penthouse’s interior was entirely black, much like the building’s facade. The floor was of the deepest obsidian, all of the furniture was black, and it looked more like a very expensive club rather than someone’s home. There was a dance floor that lit up as white squares a few yards in front of him.

To the right of the dance floor was a DJ’s station where a DJ was nodding along with the booming music blasting from large speakers mounted on his stand. Behind the DJ was a wall of ceiling to floor windows, showing the glittering city beyond. On the dance floor and all around sitting at bar stools and tables – there was even a bar set into the wall across from the DJ’s stand, the wall behind the bartender full of every kind of alcohol Ariel could imagine – were what must have been close to hundred people, maybe more.

On the far side of the dance floor and barely visible was what looked like a sitting area for a restaurant. Several people were sitting there, shouting at each other over the thumping music, smiling as they ate and watched the dancers.

There was a lounging area right before the bar to the left of the elevator. There, were circular tables, the ground beneath them lit like the dance floor. Several of the tables were full of shot glasses, a bottle of whiskey sitting in the middle of them, more people crowding around the table itself.

Above it all were several grand chandeliers and other lights that roved around the room, flashing different colors. The chandeliers weren’t lit, but they were made of pure diamond. It was clear from the way they glittered when the colored lights would hit them, turning them into a rainbow.

Twisting on the ceiling, clinging to long ribbons, were acrobats that wore very little, moving themselves every which way.

At the back of the room and up some stairs were stripper poles and on them, scantily clad women, danced, men – and women – handing them dollar bills of every amount, which they tucked into their bras and underwear. A few of the women were completely topless and sitting in the laps of men, laughing at whatever the man had just said.

Everyone in the penthouse wore masquerade masks. Only he and Mephisto were without one.

Ariel was so completely struck dumb by Mephisto’s penthouse that it took him several moments to step inside and even then he did so slowly, trying to take everything in at once. Finally, he turned to Mephisto and asked in a breathless voice that couldn’t possibly be heard over the sound of the music, “You _live_ here?”

Somehow Mephisto heard him and nodded once. “This is my hall of decadence.” He leered again, then asked, “What would you like to do first?”

Ariel was at a complete loss.

There were so many things he could do. He wanted to drink until he couldn’t see. He wanted to dance until he dropped. He wanted to fuck every woman dancing on the ceiling and twisting around the poles at the back of the room. He wanted to try some of the cocaine he could see some of the other people snorting at the lounge tables. He wanted to try everything on the menu from the restaurant near the stripper poles. He wanted it all and he didn’t even know how to begin to take any part of it.

Mephisto chuckled, seeming to recognize Ariel’s dilemma. “What about dinner?” he asked. “With your favorite drink. And the best marijuana in the state. It’ll make the food taste twice as good, which, I can assure you, already tastes excellent...even without the drug’s help.”

Ariel believed it, but all he could do was nod, speechless from Mephisto’s generosity. He was really willing to pay for him not only to have dinner, but to get high as well? That was more than anyone had offered him in a very long time.

Mephisto led him away from the elevators to the back of the room where the restaurant was. No one looked at them as they crossed the room. It seemed almost as though they were invisible. Even when they reached the back of the room and sat down at a table, there were already menus placed on top of it and, as Ariel picked up his to look through it, Mephisto said, “Just tell me what you want and I’ll go inform the kitchen while I also go get you your marijuana and your drinks. Don’t worry. You can smoke it at the table.”

Ariel nodded again, noticing for the first time the vague smell of weed that permeated the air.

The menu was expansive. Everything he’d ever loved in his life, every dish he’d ever eaten and eaten until he could eat it no more, seemed to be a part of this menu.

There were fried macaroni balls, onion rings with ranch dressing, shrimp cocktails, nachos topped with cheese, avocado, tomatoes, and ground beef, and more for appetizers. There were also soups – broccoli cheese, loaded baked potato, tomato basil, clam chowder, wonton, egg drop – and salads – coleslaw, Caesar, house, chef, garden – to order. For the main courses, there were more than Ariel could ever count: pastas, steaks, seafood, burgers, rice, and more. Plus entrees from every corner of the world: Italy, Japan, China, Mexico, India, Greece, France, Germany. The desserts were just as expansive and Ariel couldn’t figure out where to start.

Finally, he said, “I want the friend macaroni balls with loaded baked potato soup to start. I want the broccoli cheese soup too. For an entree, I want the seafood linguine with the garlic mashed potatoes, a cheeseburger, and curly fries. For desert, I want the cheesecake.”

Mephisto grinned at Ariel’s order. “ An indulgent man,” he said. “I like that. What would you like for your drink? And...what marijuana strain do you prefer?”

“ Mimosa to start,” Ariel replied almost instantly. “And a bloody mary next. And I want your best Afghan kush...if you have it.” He added the last bit shyly, feeling suddenly he was being greedy and taking advantage of Mephisto’s hospitality. 

But Mephisto only smiled once more and left the table, heading into the kitchen.

Ariel continued staring around the penthouse, taking in it in from his new vantage point in the restaurant. There were no children he noticed, though, with the women undulating on the poles behind him that only made sense. He noticed a set of stairs leading up to a closed door behind the women on the poles and figured that must be where Mephisto lived. He wondered if this scene was just a party or if it was a club that was open every night. 

He didn’t have time to wonder very long before Mephisto was returning, handing him a bowl, lighter, and grinder. The bowl was already packed and Ariel took it greedily, lighting it and inhaling. He blew the purple smoke at the ceiling, watching it twist around the acrobats above him before dissipating into nothing. As he looked away, he saw Mephisto had already brought him the drink he requested. He took it and drank it just as greedily. Mephisto didn’t move, but a waiter brought him his bloody mary almost as soon as he finished the mimosa.  He took another hit of the bowl and, out of politeness more than actual desire to share, offered it to Mephisto.

Mephisto shook his head. “Oh no, Ariel,” he said, his smile returning, though truly it never seemed to leave his face to begin with, “this isn’t for me. This is for you. I have plenty of my own.”

Ariel shrugged one shoulder, smile back at Mephisto and took another hit. Already he was beginning to feel pleasantly crossfaded. The feeling took away all of his earlier depression and agony. He had almost completely forgotten about the séance and what had happened there and, in the short instances that he remembered it, he felt as though it were not only a far off memory that happened to someone else long ago, but an unimportant one too.  Madame Marsten, to his mind, was long dead. Long dead and gone and she wasn’t coming back and that was just fine because everyone ends and everything dies and why did he care so much about it to begin with? Now he truly couldn’t see the reason, couldn’t figure it out. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered except this moment.

And that was exactly the way he wanted it to be.

The food arrived shortly after this, heaping plates of it that he hadn’t been expecting, but, now having smoked and drank, was grateful for.

He found he was starving and he started in on the fried macaroni balls with a ravenous hunger he hadn’t recognized he’d truly been feeling for years now.  He finished them so fast he hardly remembered eating them. Then he started in on his soups, eating them just as quickly. He moved on afterwards to his entrees and then his desserts.  By the time he finished, he was more than full and very drunk as well as high, having been smoking and drinking throughout the feast. 

At long last, he pushed his plate away from himself, signaling he was done, and lolled his head in Mephisto’s direction, leering at the other man just as the man had previously leered at him, saying, “I’m stuffed. I don’t think I could eat anymore even if I wanted to.”

Mephisto returned the grin and said, “What would you like to do next?” He gestured towards the dance floor and then the women on the poles above them. “The world is your oyster, Ariel Faust, and I am here to make sure you get to enjoy the meat of it to its fullest extent.”

From nowhere it seemed, a thin pale arm snaked down his chest and then around his neck, holding him loosely. Lips pressed against his ear, saying, “Hey, baby. Why don’t we find a nice quiet place?” And when Ariel turned, he saw a girl with dark hair and eyes. For a moment, he thought she was Helena. Then he saw the dark red lipstick and heavily lined eyes and realized it couldn’t possibly be. For a moment, he was hesitant, thinking of Helena, of all he’d left behind and – for just a moment – his guilt hit him once more and he started to pull away.

Then the woman pressed her lips to his and his guilt seemed to vanish. He forgot all about Helena, about his quest for answers, about everything, and all he wanted to do in that moment was dance with the woman on the flashing floor and then do exactly as she suggested.

He grinned at her. “Dance first,” he said.

The woman grinned back. “You got it.”

Her fingers curled around his and she pulled him away from the table to the dance floor. Ariel could barely hear himself over t he thump of the music, which he could barely take in, it was so loud. But that didn’t matter. The woman pressed herself against him, dancing and undulating in ways that made him simultaneously miss Helena more than anything and feel eternally grateful she wasn’t there at that moment. The woman wrapped herself around him as as she danced and he did the same, moving to the music, dancing to song after song after song. 

The night seemed to go on forever.

Eventually, the woman – who had changed from a brunette to a blonde to a redhead and back again over the course of the evening – pulled him away from the dance floor to one of the lounge tables. There they ordered the most expensive champagne and then whiskey and then wine that money could buy. They drank until they could do little more than laugh stupidly at each other’s bad jokes. Then the woman broke out the cocaine and they snorted that until their heads were lolling against the back of their seats as they stared at the ceiling, speaking not even loud enough to be heard over the music, but pretending they could hear one another anyway.

It never escaped Ariel’s understanding throughout the night that had Mephisto not arrived and taken him to his penthouse, Ariel would be dead now, sinking to the bottom of the river beneath the Manhattan bridge, his body being towed out to sea, never to be found or heard from again. And his gratefulness at the man’s saving his life never left him either.

There was only one thing that still rubbed at him no matter how much booze he drank, no matter how much he drank, no matter how high he got.

_ I do have one condition. _

_What?_

_When I die, your soul is mine._

* * *

_May the life I knew be gone_

_I accept the deed_

_But one point w have to modify_

_If I wish to linger on_

_In a state of still_

_Only then I’m yours the day I die_

\- ‘A Feast For the Vain’, Kamelot

It was nearing dawn, the sky turning from deepest black to darkest blue, when Mephisto found him again, still sitting in one of the lounge chairs, his shirt now unbuttoned, revealing Ariel’s chest. He was so intoxicated, he was having a hard time moving. The woman surrounding him were passed out drunk, curled on the lounge chairs, sleeping soundly despite the pounding music. The lounge chairs and their tables were set into impressions in the floor, the floor around them was illuminated much like the dance floor and when Mephisto knelt to get on Ariel’s level, it didn’t appear comical.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, giving his trademark smile.

Ariel nodded, giving a half smile that was more than a little sloppy. “Yes.” He couldn’t seem to make his mouth form any other words. He could live in this penthouse forever.

“Have you considered my offer at all?”

Again Mephisto’s words returned to him, the ones he’d spoken on the bridge, the ones Ariel had completely dismissed and still seemed ridiculous now thinking about it intoxicated.

_I do have one condition._

_What?_

_When I die, your soul is mine._

His soul would belong to Mephisto when he died? If he allowed Mephisto to help him with his quest for answers? Mephisto claimed he could help him find them, find them quickly even, he suspected. But the price was his soul and – staring out the window, watching the dawn slowly come into being, he thought again of the leather winged finger, the goat horns, the hellish world he’d seen, the creature that had killed Madame Marsten.

Of Mephisto’s eyes glowing red on the Manhattan bridge.

Was it possible that Mephisto was this creature?

He couldn’t be. Demons and devils he was sure were real – especially after the results of the séance, but did they appear as rich handsome men in suits, offering him more food and drugs and sex than he’d ever had in his life? It stood to reason in a strange way, but Mephisto, for all his riches and offerings of Ariel’s indulgences, seemed too normal to truly be a part of that underground world everyone feared whether they admitted it or not.

Still, simply agreeing to allow this man to take his soul when he died seemed foolish under any circumstances. And whilst he wanted to find the answers to his questions more than anything on earth, he also didn’t want to agree to something so foolishly. There had to be a condition of his own. He had to invent one, one that was entirely possible, but not likely.

It took him a moment, but finally Ariel nodded and began to sit up slowly, saying, “I have.”

“And?” Mephisto asked, a trace of impatience in his words.

“I have one condition,” he said, the near direct parallel of what had been said between them on the bridge not escaping his notice.

“Go on.”

“You’ll only get my soul if I find one moment in life that I want to live in forever. Otherwise when I die, my soul remains intact and I go to heaven or wherever I’m meant to go anyway.”

For a moment, Mephisto said nothing. He knelt by the lounge chair, staring down at Ariel, at the girls around him, and, for the briefest of moments, Ariel could’ve sworn he saw disgust in the other man’s eyes. Then the moment was gone and the look vanished and Mephisto was smiling again. He held out his hand to Ariel and Ariel noticed for the first time how long and pale his fingers were, the nails perfectly filed into long sharp points – long and pale...like the rest of him and, he couldn’t help thinking, like the devil. Was he really noticing warning signs that were there to be noticed or was his alcohol addled brain seeing ghosts? Seeing things that weren’t really there?

He was more than willing to bet it was the latter. He would’ve bet his life on it at that exact moment if he’d been given half the chance – despite everything, he found that even now he would’ve rather have died. His questions weren’t answered yet and Helena wasn’t there. The desire to die was still very strong. He wondered how much longer he would have to fight the feeling.

Shaking these thoughts from his mind with a near involuntary shudder, he sat up and extended his hand, reaching for Mephisto’s.

As he did, he paused, a voice in his head that was distinctly Helena’s whispering a soft warning.

_No, Ariel. Don’t do it. Your soul is the only one you have. Don’t bargain it away so easily._

Ariel swallowed. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps this _was_ a bad idea.

“Ariel.”

Ariel blinked and looked up.

Mephisto was staring at him expectantly.

Suddenly Helena’s voice evaporated and Ariel forgot she had even spoken to him to begin with. Why again was he hesitating? He truly couldn’t fathom it.

He closed the distance between his hand and Mephisto’s in a single breath of motion.

Without a warning, there was a thunderclap outside. Lightning flashed illuminating the sky and everyone in the penthouse paused for a moment, making noises of awe as groups ran to the ceiling to floor windows to watch the lightning storm that raged for a few moments outside, giving the city a preday light that wouldn’t show its face for several more hours.

Again Mephisto leered at him, his smile seeming to stretch so wide that Ariel was certain his lips were going to split in two and bleed all over everything. It was almost grotesque.

Then Ariel blinked and the illusion, like Helena’s voice, was gone.

“I accept.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am quite happy with how this chapter turned out. it managed to be good without being too extraditious.


End file.
